This invention relates to an analogue type watch having alarm and other functions as desired, and particularly to a multi-function analogue watch using same type counters and relatively simple electronic circuits, still providing as many different functions as desired.
A variety of attempts have been made in the hope of providing to a mechanical wrist watch an alarm function which an electronic or digital watch has.
In almost all the proposed alarm clock structures, there are provided a train of time gears for driving the hour and minute hands and another train of set gears for driving the set hand, one of time gears having a male projection (or female recess) and the counter one of set gears having a female recess (or male projection). When the hour and minute hands come to indicate a particular time for which the alarm clock is set, the male projection of the selected time (or set) gear falls in the female recess of the selected set (or time) gear, thereby causing an associated switch to turn "on" for producing an electric signal in a set time detector, and finally alarming. The set time detector is composed of many parts. When it is desired that the alarm clock is set for a particular time, a thumb button for setting the alarm clock is rotated to drive and put the time and set gears in a right positional relationship with each other through the agency of an associated power transmission. The power transmission is composed of many parts, too. Thus, the number of assembling steps, and hence the cost the cost for assembling clocks increase accordingly. Still disadvantageously the alarm clock cannot be set for any particular time with accuracy, and a set time cannot be detected with accuracy, either. An alarm clock has an inner space enough to accommodate a set time detector and a power transmission. But a wrist watch has no sufficient space therein. Stated otherwise such alarm mechanism cannot be packed in without increasing the size of the wrist watch, and sometimes the degrees of freedom are limited in designing the appearance of the wrist watch. Recently, analogue watches have been increasingly in favour of customers, and accordingly there has been an ever increasing demand for analogue watches having as many functions as digital watches as for instance chronograph, dual-time, calendar, etc. in addition to alarm. Thus, manufacturers have a strong desire for making up such multi-function analogue type watches.
In U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,358,840 and 4,419,019, there were proposed such analogue type watches that can provide multi-function by using a plurality of up-down counters. As is well known, however, the up-down counters are complicated in circuit structure and in control of switching up and down terminals according to controlling signals.